The
Planned Parenthood in Flint, in a modest brick building off a lonely
stretch of highway, might not seem like an obvious first stop for a
resident concerned about the strangely colored, bad smelling water that
started coming out of taps in the city in early 2014.

But
for those who work inside, tackling the issue of access to potable
water was a no brainer once patients began voicing concerns. As a
preventative health organization with deep roots in the local community,
the conversation came naturally.

After
hearing reports from their patients about chemicals in the water, the
clinic sprang into action months before any state of emergency was
declared, handing out water filters and teaching people how to use them.

“We’re
more than just a reproductive health organization, we work for
reproductive justice,” explained Christina Soliz, field organizer with
Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan. “Having access to clean,
safe water is a reproductive justice issue. It affects your health.
Families deserve better than this.”

As
the crisis continues to unfold — residents are still being tested for
lead exposure, and the effects might not show up for years — Planned
Parenthood will continue to focus on educating patients. But years of
political attacks and austerity have gutted the resources it has at its
disposal. Conservatives’ fixation on its abortion services has turned
the organization into a political football. Presidential candidate Ted
Cruz, who led the charge in the Senate to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood’s funding, launched his campaign’s water distribution efforts at Flint’s crisis pregnancy centers, which seek to divert women from Planned Parenthood with misleading or outright false information.

Michigan
funding for pregnancy prevention — some of which goes to Planned
Parenthood — has dropped from more than $7 million in 2001 to just a bit
over $600,000 as of 2012, with the most dramatic cut in 2009 when it
was reduced by more than 75 percent. The cuts came as Planned Parenthood
has been specifically targeted by Michigan lawmakers: last year, the
state House passed a bill
banning the organization from receiving state funding, even though it
doesn’t allocate any dollars to Planned Parenthood as it is.

“We’re
seeing the effects of [austerity measures] in a lot of different
places,” Tunde Olaniran, outreach manager, said. “In Flint, there was a
drastic cut and we’re trying to slowly rebuild.”

SNIP

“People
who walk in the door — they’re people, so we wanted to address
something that was a huge issue,” Olaniran said. “We’re trying to make
sure we care about the entire lives of people who come into our doors.”

Go on, Governor Wasting-Money-on-Losing-Causes, sue them. Spend tens of millions of tax dollars you claim the state doesn't have to takes this all the way to the Supreme Court where Notorious RBG will slap the stupid right off your face.

Planned Parenthood has begun offering abortions for the first time in
Kentucky at a new health center it opened last month in downtown
Louisville - a move that quickly inflamed political passions in
Frankfort, where anti-abortion sentiment is strong among some lawmakers.

"They
are openly and knowingly operating an unlicensed abortion facility in
clear violation of the law," Bevin said in a statement.

Oh, goody: Notorious RBG loves it when you commence lawsuits against legal medical care by lying, you motherfucking liar.

"We will use the
full force of the commonwealth to put a stop to this. There is no room
in Kentucky for this kind of blatant disregard for proper legal
procedure."

A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman responded
that the organization "applied for an abortion facility license and
commenced services under the guidance of the Office of the Inspector
General, the state office that is responsible for licensing health
facilities."

That office is housed within the Cabinet for
Health and Family Services, part of state government. Planned
Parenthood didn't say whether it had yet received the license, only that
it followed the guidance of the licensing agency in beginning abortion
services.

Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned
Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, or PPINK, said the decision to offer
abortion services was based on women's medical needs, not politics.

"We knew we were functioning in a really important community where there's a great unmet need," Cockrum said.

She
said Planned Parenthood officials considered the matter carefully
before deciding to include surgical and non-surgical abortions (those
induced by medication) among the health services at the new site on
Seventh Street.

"It's a very important decision and absolutely you have to give much careful thought to it," Cockrum said.

Kentucky
previously had only one abortion provider, a private clinic in
Louisville that also operates a part-time clinic in Lexington.

SNIP

But supporters of abortion rights on Thursday hailed it as welcomed step.

"We
believe Kentucky is vastly underserved when it comes to health care
options for women," said Derek Selznick, reproductive freedom project
director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

And
he noted that if the goal of opponents is to reduce abortion, Planned
Parenthood helps achieve that through birth control services and family
planning counseling it offers.

"I think they're part of the solution," Selznick said.

In
a media release Thursday, PPINK said the center also offers cancer
screenings, medical exams, birth control services, and testing for HIV
and sexually transmitted diseases.

SNIP

But Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Louisville Democrat and supporter of abortion rights, welcomed the news.

"Any
time we have safe, legal health care services for women so desperately
needed in this state, it's a step forward for women in Kentucky," she
said.

Planned Parenthood, which previously operated from a
clinic on South Second Street, selected and designed its new location
to accommodate abortion services. It is surrounded by privacy walls and
fencing with a secured entrance.

At Louisville's other
abortion clinic, patients must walk through abortion opponents who
regularly protest at the storefront site on West Market Street.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Conservatism
is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the
subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound
argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise
their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern
themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, agency, the
prerogative of the elite.

Though it is often
claimed that the left stands for equality while the right stands for
freedom, this notion misstates the actual disagreement between right and
left.

Historically, the conservative has favored liberty for the higher
orders and constraint for the lower orders. What the conservative sees
and dislikes in equality, in other words, is not a threat to freedom,
but its extension. For in that extension, he sees a loss of his own
freedom. ... Such was the threat Edmund Burke saw in the French
Revolution: not merely an expropriation of property or explosion of
violence but an inversion of the obligations of deference and command.
"The levellers," he claimed, "only change and pervert the natural order
of things."

Kynect
is a popular system that’s worked beautifully, but Bevin is determined
to scrap it anyway, in part because of knee-jerk partisanship –
“Obamacare” is bad, or something – and in part because the new
Republican governor believes the move will save the state money.

Except,
it won’t. State officials have already estimated that dismantling the
successful Kynect system will cost taxpayers $23 million.

Just
as importantly, Kentucky received millions more in federal funds to
create Kynect, and the governor’s decision to tear it down means the
state will likely have to pay Washington back for the investment
Kentucky no longer wants.

What’s more, as we
discussed a few weeks ago, there’s also an under-appreciated irony to
all of this: Bevin, a far-right governor, is also abandoning the tenets
of his own ideology. By scrapping Kynect, the Kentuckian is shifting
power from his state to Washington, D.C., on purpose, without
explanation.

Kynect has worked. It’s popular.
It saves the state money. And it keeps control in Kentucky instead of
D.C. Bevin is overlooking all of this because, well, just because.

Because conservative faux-libertarians like Bevin don't really want small government. They really want government that subsidizes the rich at the expense of the rest of us.

Yonder
in Kentucky, creationists have been busy bees building a giant ark and
other fun exhibits which they plan to use to show all the homeschooled
children how humans roamed the earth beside dinosaurs, among other
things.

The
owner of the park refuses to comply with state non-discrimination
statutes, which is why the state pulled the tax subsidies away.

The
state of Kentucky must give millions of dollars in tax subsidies to a
Noah’s Ark theme park owned by a creationist ministry, even though that
ministry refuses to comply with the state’s request not to engage in
hiring discrimination, according to an opinion by a George W. Bush
appointee to the federal bench. Under Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove’s
opinion, the creationist group Answers in Genesis (AiG) stands to gain
up to $18 million

....

Though
Kentucky officials were initially enthusiastic about providing these
subsidies to help fund the Ark Encounter, they later reversed course
citing fears that the state constitution does not permit tax incentives
to be used to “advance religion,” as well as concerns that AiG “intends
to discriminate in hiring its employees based on religion.” AiG sued,
alleging various First Amendment theories.

Well,
that's cheeky of them. They want to fall back on the First Amendment as
an excuse for discrimination, but want the state to give them millions
of dollars in tax subsidies to keep their enterprise running. And
Federal Judge Van Tatenhove agrees.

Judge Van
Tatenhove’s decision in favor of AiG is on much shakier ground, however,
when he claims that AiG is entitled to the subsidy even if it wants to
engage in employment discrimination. He roots this decision largely in a
non-sequitur about what AiG’s obligations would be if they were sued by
an employee alleging discrimination. As the judge notes, federal law
exempts “a religious corporation, association, educational institution,
or society” from the federal ban on employment discrimination “with
respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to
perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation,
association, educational institution, or society of its activities.”
Thus, a religious group like AiG typically has the right to hire only
members of a particular faith without having to face a federal lawsuit.

Take
this one up the appellate chain fast, or we're going to see a lot more
of this creative blending of church and state, particularly in the
states that can least afford it.

So
the state will of course appeal, yes? No. We regret to inform you that
between the time this lawsuit was filed and now, Kentucky
knuckle-draggers elected known teabaggin’, Bible-humpin’, cock-fightin’
sack of shit Republican Matt Bevin as their governor, and, well, bad
news:

“We are pleased the Court has ruled in
favor of the Ark project. This Administration does not support
discrimination against any worthy economic development projects,” said
Jessica Ditto, a spokesman for the governor.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

When you have no ideas other than ugh gubmint baaaaaaaad, and you're too ignorant and lazy to actually figure out how to fund public services in the most effective way, you just demand across-the-board cuts, demonize state workers and call it a day.

Gov. Matt Bevin on Tuesday night proposed increasing funding
for beleaguered state pension funds by more than a billion dollars
over the next two years, finding most of that money by slashing funding
to most state agencies by 9 percent.

"We cannot move
forward unless we address the crippling debt that faces this state. And
that's really the crux of what we're here to talk about tonight," Bevin
said of the more than $30 billion in unfunded liabilities in state
pension funds during a speech to a joint session of the legislature that
lasted an hour and eight minutes.

Bevin's first speech
to the legislature outlined a proposed two-year state budget that is
true to his campaign promises to cut the size of government and address
the pension funding crisis.

"We've got to take immediate
action," Bevin said. "Because to continue to ignore our financial
problems is no longer an option. It just isn't."

Forty years of budget cutting, and repugs still refuse to acknowledge the facts that it always - always - hurts the economy. Calling for cuts is ignoring out financial problems, which start with a state tax structure that subsidizes the rich and decomposing industries like coal and punishes working people.

Kentucky's not going to crawl out of its financial problems until the governor and legislature makes corporations and the rich pay their fair share of taxes - and pay back the billions they've stolen from actual taxpayers over the last 40 years.

Here's a prediction for you: when agencies scream that they can't cut their budget's 9 percent without shutting their doors, Bevin's going to tell them to turn the services over the private contractors, and oh, hey, look, here's a list of my personal billionaire friends who'd be happy to take that budget off your hands.

Because once state government is in the hands of corporate criminals like Corrections Corporation of America, those 9 percent cuts are going to mysteriously disappear while the cost of providing services escalates.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

That's what you get when you stuff your administration with unprosecuted criminals from the last repug administration.Tom Loftus at the Courier:

The man recently appointed as director of resorts for the Kentucky
Department of Parks despite a past violation of the state government
ethics code has resigned.

SNIP

The Bevin administration
announced on Jan. 14 that Rittenhouse, who lives in Cadiz and previously
managed two state park resorts, had been appointed as director of
resorts – a job that pays $75,190 per year.

But the following day
The Courier-Journal and cn/2 reported that just one year ago the ethics
commission found Rittenhouse violated the ethics code. Rittenhouse
admitted that evidence showed he violated the code and he paid a $1,500
civil penalty in a settlement with the commission last January.

Monday, January 25, 2016

The problem for them, of course, is that there is no public service that private companies can provide more effectively and more cheaply than government can.

So for forty years, corporations and their repug knob-gobblers have been demonizing government and lying about what government does in order to grab fat sweetheart contracts that pay them billions to provide no services, thus pissing off taxpayers who blame government and allow more services to be privatized.

Even in the case of a service that private utilities have promised for more than 20 years to provide and failed spectacularly, the privatizers and their cheerleaders are fighting against public service.

A year after state officials created a nationally recognized
public-private partnership to build America’s best statewide broadband
network, opponents are trying to kill it.

Some telecom
and cable companies that now provide Internet service around the state,
along with several right-wing advocacy groups, are pushing legislators
and Gov. Matt Bevin to rethink the project, called KentuckyWired.

KentuckyWired was created as part of the Shaping Our Appalachian Region initiative
organized by former Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Hal
Rogers, a Republican from Somerset and chairman of the House
Appropriations committee.

The high-speed, fiber-optic
network is to be managed and ultimately paid for by private industry.
But it will be owned by the public and offer open access to any Internet
service provider.

KentuckyWired officials say this network and
its innovative structure could be a boon for economic development,
giving businesses and homes better service, more choice and more
competitive prices.

Independent studies have given Kentucky low rankings nationally for broadband availability, service and cost.

But
AT&T has filed a protest over the state’s process for awarding
school Internet service contracts, many of which it now has. The
Kentucky Telecom Association, which represents 15 rural Internet
providers, thinks KentuckyWired should be reconsidered, claiming it
would duplicate existing infrastructure and undermine existing
businesses that need their state and school service contracts.

Yeah, that would be the same AT&T that put high-fiber line in my front yard 15 years ago but still claims they can't get DSL to my house. The same AT&T you hear people cursing as they fail to get service on their smart phones. The same AT&T that has people cancelling their Direct TV in droves since AT&T bought it.

Government-provided broadband would be state-of-the-art and affordable, words not in the vocabulary of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-mobile or any other private corporation currently stealing money from customers and giving no service in return.

Another epic blizzard threatens 50 million people on the East Coast,
with a bulls-eye on Washington DC. And leading climatologists again
explain how human-induced climate change, especially warming-fueled
ocean temperatures, are super-charging the amount of moisture in the
atmosphere the storm will dump on us.

First, though, I think the name, Winter Storm Jonas, doesn’t do justice to this blizzard, especially since the Jonas brothers are a pretty harmless pop rock band. I’m suggesting the name, Superstorm (Edward) Snowed-In: Because it will turn DC upside down, bring the government to a standstill, and then flee the country.

Seriously, though, please take this superstorm seriously. As meteorologist Paul Douglas notes,
“The Washington D.C. office of the National Weather Service issued a
Blizzard Watch for the first time since 1986.” Besides upwards of two
feet of snow and high winds over a 36-hour period, coastal regions can
also expect some record storm surges.

I asked two of the country’s top climatologists, Michael Mann and
Kevin Trenberth, to comment on the role climate change has on this
latest superstorm, which is forecast to break records.

Mann, Director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center,
explained: “There is peer-reviewed science that now suggests that
climate change will lead to more of these intense, blizzard-producing
nor’easters, for precisely the reason we’re seeing this massive storm —
unusually warm Atlantic ocean surface temperatures (temperatures are in
the 70s off the coast of Virginia).”

When you mix extra moisture with “a cold Arctic outbreak (something
we’ll continue to get even as global warming proceeds),” as Mann points
out, “you get huge amounts of energy and moisture, and monster
snowfalls, like we’re about to see here.”
Mann’s bottom line:

While critics like to claim that these massive winter storms are evidence against climate change, they are actually favored by climate change.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt said
Thursday that the state’s accountability system will be streamlined
within the next 18 months and that he wanted everyone’s help.

The
state’s assessment and accountability system is designed to provide
information about the performance of students, schools and districts.
Kentucky’s public school students participate in annual testing, and the
results of those tests are included in the state’s accountability
system for schools and districts.

Meanwhile, Bevin has probably already written the charter no-bid contracts and picked out the corporations who will provide half the education at twice the price.

Outside
the center, an “ad hoc” group of about 25 educators and other citizens
rallied to express concerns that charter schools will siphon resources
away from traditional public schools and circumvent the transparency
expected of public schools. Chris Harmer, who is a member of interfaith
group Fellowship of Reconciliation and has worked with the Ditch the Gap
Coalition, said several protesters tried to enter the event but were
escorted out.

When asked about this
during a press conference following the meeting with pastors, Bevin said
the event was a public meeting, as far as he knew, and had not heard of
anyone being turned away.

However,
Bevin was critical of those who opposed charter schools, specifically
calling out the Kentucky Education Association and the Jefferson County
Teachers Association as caring more about “maintaining control of power”
than “doing right by our children.”

Really, motherfucker? First of all, it's not your children who are going to be sent to corporate obedience camps and trained to be good workers. It's not your children who are going to be left behind in crumbling public schools, crammed 60 to a class with a single "teacher" making minimum wage.

The cure for failing schools is money, you moron. Not just money for the schools but money for families to alleviate the poverty that bars children from learning.

It’s
hardly surprising that a leading factor in how well students do in the
classroom is their home life. Are they homeless? Are they a victim of
abuse? Are their parents working three jobs in order to keep a roof over
their heads? Of course these questions (or at least the first and
third) reflect divisions within class and race. But education reform
advocates paper all this over. They focus on attacking teacher unions
for getting in ways of their scams to profit off of education by blaming
them for these underperforming students. But of course the education
reform people have absolutely no solutions to these problems. And
by talking about students’ “grit” to get an education as a factor and
noting that poor students and students of color lack this “grit,” they are just naturalizing racial and class inequality to serve their own agenda.

So,
what are those challenges? If a hypothetical classroom of 30 children
were based on current demographics in the United States, this is how the
students in that classroom would live: Seven would live in poverty, 11
would be non-white, six wouldn’t speak English as a first language, six
wouldn’t be reared by their biological parents, one would be homeless,
and six would be victims of abuse.

Howard
said that exposure to trauma has a profound impact on cognitive
development and academic outcomes, and schools and teachers are woefully
unprepared to contend with these realities. Children dealing with
traumatic situations should not been seen as pathological, he argued.
Instead, educators need to recognize the resilience they are showing
already. The instruments and surveys that have been used to measure
social-emotional skills such as persistence and grit have not taken into
account these factors, Howard said.

He
questioned the tools used to collect data that suggest poor students and
students of color do not have as high a degree of grit as middle-class
and white peers.

The transformative potential
in growth mindsets and social-emotional skills such as grit may be more
applicable to students whose basic needs are already met. When asking
the question of why some children succeed in school and others don’t, he
said the educators and administrators tend to overestimate the power of
the person and underestimate the power of the situation.

Underestimating
what is inconvenient for the Rheeist agenda is something these people
do all the time. It’s also why education reform is no solution at all to
any of these problems. If you want to fix education, fix poverty.
That’s the number one thing we can do. Programs like Head Start have
done far more than anything Michelle Rhee or Campbell Brown or Scott Cowen
will ever do. That’s what we need more of–direct interventions to
alleviate poverty. But since there’s no profit to be made off of it, it
doesn’t happen.

A Senate committee overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday
intended to end state funding for family planning and women’s health
services at Planned Parenthood clinics in Lexington and Louisville,
which this fiscal year totaled $331,309.

Republican Sen.
Max Wise of Campbellsville, sponsor of Senate Bill 7, said he was moved
to act by “Planned Parenthood’s notorious history as an abortion
provider.” None of Kentucky’s Planned Parenthood clinics provide
abortions. But Wise’s bill seeks to block funding to clinics that offer
abortion “referrals” or “counseling,” as Planned Parenthood does in the
state.

SNIP
SB 7 proceeds to the Republican-led
Senate, which is expected to pass it. The Democratic-led House
traditionally has blocked bills that would restrict women’s access to
abortion. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said Thursday that
he has not reviewed Wise’s bill or a similar bill filed by House
Republicans, so he had no comment.

Critics warned Thursday that
Wise’s bill could imperil the $5.6 million the federal government gives
to Kentucky annually in “Title X funds” for family planning and women’s
health services at local health departments and other health clinics.
The two Planned Parenthood clinics in Lexington and Louisville share in
that funding.

Federal law requires that pregnant women served by
Title X funds have the opportunity to hear medical information about
abortion, including the “risks and benefits.” Other Title X services
include birth control, pregnancy testing and counseling, examinations
for sexually transmitted diseases and breast and cervical cancer
screening.

Cutting Title X programs for low-income women to spite
Planned Parenthood would lead to more unintended pregnancies in
Kentucky, among many other health problems, said Derek Selznick,
director of the Kentucky ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

“Essentially, they want to take away funds that prevent 6,000 abortions a year,” Selznick said.

“The
legislature must not interfere with the doctor-patient relationship by
dictating what health care information can be shared,” Bergin said. “My
patients must be able to make medical decisions with knowledge of all
options, and based on what’s right for themselves and their families.”

Friday, January 22, 2016

For forty-three years, the Democratic representatives in the state house have been the only thing standing between Kentucky women and the nightmare choice between being forced to give birth or dying from an illegal procedure.

With just a one-vote Democratic majority and a Connecticut Yankee Lying Coward determined to turn Kentucky into Haiti in the governor's office, that barrier is about to fall.

From the ACLU of Kentucky:

This is a critically important moment for reproductive freedom in Kentucky.

Thank you for taking a stand for Kentucky women. When you're done with your call, please share this message on Facebook and Twitter. The more calls and messages we can field, the better.

From the National Abortion Rights Action League:

Today
is the anniversary of that historic day in 1973 when the Supreme Court,
in a landmark decision, affirmed abortion as a constitutionally
protected right.
But you and I both know the story didn't end there.

In the 43 years since Roe v. Wade,
anti-choice extremists have partnered with politicians across the
country to pass wave upon wave of legislation with a singular goal: to
reverse the Supreme Court's decision and make abortion so inaccessible
that it's effectively illegal all over again.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Once
upon a time, a group of them decided to act on their principles and
establish a Libertarian paradise in a foreign country: Galt’s Gulch
Chile, they called it. What happened next?

Galt’s
Gulch Chile is the name of a proposed residential community to be built
near Curacaví Chile, approximately one hour west of Santiago and one
hour east of the Pacific Ocean. The original principals were John Cobin,
Germán Eyzaguirre, Jeff Berwick (The Dollar Vigilante) and KENNETH DALE
JOHNSON. Through a series of broken promises, broken contracts and
dishonest maneuvers, johnson circleJohnson was able to cut his partners
and investors out of the real estate development project and claim 100%
ownership and control.

He proceeded to
develop, not a community as advertised, but an affinity scam aimed at
Western libertarians. Johnson employed deceptive selling practices,
violations of US and Chilean law, money laundering, and multiple
jurisdictions to defraud his investors of US $10.45 million ($10.05
million with GGC and $400,000 with tangential scams).

Johnson
sounds like the ideal Libertarian man, a true Randian hero, living up
to the principles of selfishness to the ultimate degree. What’s the
complaint? This is exactly what ought to happen if you design a
community around the principles of Ayn Rand — perhaps the problem is
that Rand didn’t recognize the value of community, and community is
rather antithetical to her magical hyper-competent individualists.

The subtitle at that site is restoring the vision. I don’t think they get it.

Not a chance. We’re dedicated to turning Fraud’s Gulch Chile into Galt’s Gulch Chile. That’s what this website is all about.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Now, says Dave Nalle, the vice chairman of the Republican Liberty
Caucus, which has endorsed Paul, the candidate is re-emphasizing his
libertarian roots in a final dash that Nalle says is crucial for him to
stay relevant.

Funny how when repugs say "Liberty" they never mean "Liberty" for black people or female people or gay people or muslim people or poor people or anybody who is not white, straight, male, christian, repug and rich like them.

The Tribble-Toupeed One wants a "small" government that's just big enough to deport all the brown immigrants, shove gays back in the closet, impose christian sharia law, turn women into nothing but birthing vessels and eliminate taxes on the rich but quadruple them on the poor to keep giving trillion-dollar subsidies to fossil-fuel corporations and military contractors.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Both
formats produced positive correlations between COWAT fluency, animal
fluency, and taboo word fluency, supporting the fluency-is-fluency
hypothesis. In each study, a set of 10 taboo words accounted for 55–60%
of all taboo word data.

What
this means is that people who cuss a lot are smarter than the rest of
you. So there. Wonkblog's Ana Swanson, who apparently has access to the
full paper, explains further:

In
order to use bad words appropriately, people still have to understand
nuanced distinctions about language, the paper says. As such, cursing
isn’t a sign of a limited vocabulary at all. Past research has shown
that when people are really at a loss for words, they tend to say things
like “er” or “um,” rather than cursing. Other studies have shown that
college students are more likely to use curse words, and that this group tends to have a larger vocabulary than the population in general.

“A
voluminous taboo lexicon may better be considered an indicator of
healthy verbal abilities rather than a cover for their deficiencies,”
the researchers write.

Quite so.
And on that score, the study's findings should give us all pause. Take a
look at the chart on the right, which shows the number of words people
could dredge up in three different categories. Apparently the average
American can come up with only 11 curse words. Eleven! That's pathetic. I
have dreams where I use more curse words than that. Of course, there's
much I don't know about the methodology of this study. How much time did
people have to come up with words? How unique did words have to be? Are fuck and fuckwit separate words, or merely different members of the vast fuck family? It would cost me $35.95 to find out, and you can guess how likely I am to spend my Christmas money on that.

Because it does NOT restore voting rights to people who have paid their debt to society, and if this bill really did help former felons get jobs, housing, etc., the repugs who run the Kentucky state senate will never, ever accept it.

The Kentucky House voted 80 to 11 Friday for a bill that
would let people convicted of Class D felonies erase their criminal
records and get a second chance at jobs, housing and other opportunities
sometimes denied felons.

State law allows people to
petition a court to have misdemeanors and violations expunged from all
public records five years after they complete their sentences. House Bill 40
would expand that right to Class D felonies — the lowest level of
felony, punishable by one to five years in prison — with exceptions,
including sex offenses, crimes against children or the elderly, human
trafficking and public corruption.

“I believe this legislation’s time has come. There is
an overwhelming and growing army of support for expunging the records of
people who commit Class D felonies and helping these individuals become
successful, productive, employable citizens of the commonwealth,” the
bill’s sponsor, Rep. Darryl Owens, D-Louisville, said in a floor speech
before the vote.

“House Bill 40 is about redemption,”
Owens said. “It’s about second chances. It’s about acknowledging that
there, but for the grace of God, could go each of us.”

Gov. Matt
Bevin previously said he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk. But
on Friday, Bevin’s office said the governor has “concerns that the bill
in its current form expands beyond the original intent.” Bevin did not
elaborate.

HA! Of course Governor Lying Coward has "concerns." It would help poor people who don't contribute to his campaign.

Also the repug thugs in the state senate have warned him to stay in line if he expects his economy-destroying budget to pass.

It's called Capital Mobility, Governor Connecticut Yankee Lying Coward. It happens when pro-big-bidness government leaders cheer on off-shoring of good jobs in the name of the almighty free market.

This time next year, that GE factory at Appliance Park will be sitting empty and Bevin will be telling thousands of unemployed Kentuckians that they don't need gubmint giveaways like unemployment insurance and food stamps when there are $7-an-hour burger-flipping opportunities going begging.

The following is a statement from Governor Bevin on General Electric Company’s decision to sell GE Appliances to Haier.

“The Commonwealth is proud to be the home of GE Appliances headquarters and we are excited by today’s
announcement! This sale to Haier offers great potential for global
scalability and job growth. I applaud
Haier’s decision to keep GE Appliances headquarters in Louisville in
recognition of the strong leadership team and experienced workforce. GE
Appliances is a first-class global company and we look forward to
working closely with them in the months and years
ahead.

“Haier is the number one
global seller of appliances. This new partnership puts Kentucky in prime
position to compete globally on appliance manufacturing. It is our goal
not only to maintain and support
the jobs currently at Appliance Park, but also to strengthen and grow
the appliance business there. Appliance Park has been an institution in
Louisville for decades and has supported tens of thousands of Kentucky
families during that time. While there are
still many steps that must be taken before this agreement becomes
final, we intend to work with the City of Louisville, GE Appliances and
Haier to ensure a bright and mutually beneficial future for all
involved.”

Thursday, January 14, 2016

From TPM, re the damn-near-successful effort by the repug governor of Michigan to permanently poison the mostly black and poor residents of Flint:

Genesee
County sheriff's Capt. Casey Tafoya has said volunteers and police
hoped to get (clean water and water filters) to 500 to 600 houses a dayin a city of about 99,000
residents with an estimated 30,000 households.

Let's see: 30,000 households divided by 600 houses visited per day is 50 days. A healthy, strong
person can live without water for no more than THREE days. Somebody
better tell the Flint funeral homes to ramp up for big business.

You
know who collects the data from doctors and clinics and hospitals all
over the state, figures out when cases of dangerous diseases are
increasing and gets the word out to parents, caregivers, teachers, doctors,
hospitals
and others who need that information?

Government
employees, that’s who. State workers. The ones Governor Matt "Connecticut Yankee Lying Coward" Bevin is planning to get rid of. By the
thousand.

From the Kentucky Department of Public Health, housed in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services:

Kentucky experienced a rise in reported cases of pertussis, also known
as whooping cough, at the end of 2015, with public health officials
reporting 87 cases of the illness between August and December. Pertussis
is a highly contagious respiratory disease
caused by bacteria and is transmitted through respiratory droplets from
sneezing, coughing or talking. This vaccine-preventable disease can be
deadly to infants too young to have been fully vaccinated, so it’s
especially important for parents and caregivers
of young children to be up-to-date on immunizations.

You know how many private corporations are capable of handling that responsibility? None, that's how many. Not that that will stop Bevin from giving millions of taxpayers dollars to one to fuck up the job.

Bevin
campaigned on a pledge to get rid of the exchange, known as kynect. It
was authorized by an executive order from his predecessor, Democrat
Steve Beshear.

The Courier-Journal (http://cjky.it/1N3zPNI ) reported Monday
that Bevin's Dec. 30 letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary
Sylvia Burwell said he wants to wind down the state exchange and
transition Kentuckians to the federal site to shop for insurance. The
letter said he wants the transition to occur "as soon as practicable."

The
state exchange remains open. The changes won't affect anyone shopping
for insurance for the current enrollment period, which ends Jan. 31.
Anyone who signed up for Medicaid coverage through the kynect site also
won't be affected.

kynect directly employs hundreds
of taxpaying Kentuckians throughout the Commonwealth - more than most
private employers, including the Lying Coward himself.

The
kynect contact center, a major component of the Affordable Care Act,
received approximately 195,000 calls in December 2013, up from 85,610 in
November. The dramatic call volume increase prompted the addition of 77
customer care agents by Xerox.

Community
Action Kentucky and 12 Community Action Affiliates are proud to have
been selected by the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange to serve as
"kynectors" to assist consumers with enrollment for healthcare benefits
through kynect, Kentucky's Healthcare Connection. The role of these
kynectors is to provide education services and enrollment assistance to
individuals for Qualified Health Plans, Medicaid or the Small Business
Health Options Program (SHOP). Qualifying small businesses with 2-50
employees will be eligible to participate in SHOP.

Community
Action Kentucky through their Community Action affiliates will conduct
public education, and outreach activities to raise awareness of
insurance affordability programs and coverage options; distribute fair
and impartial information about available health plans; facilitate
enrollment in health plans; provide referrals to any applicable office
in the event of complaints and/or appeals, and provide guidance in
modifying coverage, if appropriate.

Kentuckians
will be able to compare and select insurance plans and find out if they
qualify for programs like Medicaid and KCHIP. Individuals will find out
if they qualify for payment assistance and special discounts on
deductibles, copays and co-insurance. kynect will also be able to assist
small businesses with enrolling their employees in health plans, and
businesses with fewer than 25 employees may qualify for tax credits.

Eliminating
kynect is going to throw thousands of Kentuckians, including children,
onto the tender mercies of the social safety net that the Lying Coward
thinks only moochers need.

But faux-libertarians don't care about people who aren't already rich and Connecticut Yankee Bevin doesn't care about Kentucky.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

If you're holding a gun on someone, there's always reason and time to say something first. Dick Cheney and the NRA have embedded into our culture the lie that shooting first is not just OK, but the best and safest thing to do.

A woman in St. Cloud, Florida, woke up just before midnight Tuesday and fired a shot at a person she thought had broken into her home.

But
the person wasn’t an intruder; it was her 27-year-old daughter. The
woman fired one round, but police didn’t say where the bullet hit the
daughter. She died at a hospital. The shooting appears to be accidental,
police said. An investigation is ongoing.

The
only problem with that story is the use of the word “accident.” Such
shootings—and they occur all too frequently in America—are never
accidents. They are not tragedies. They are negligent homicides at best,
and 2nd-degree murders at worst.

The number
of home invasion robberies that lead to physical harm for the victim is
low—particularly in the sorts of neighborhoods in which “defensive gun
use” tends to take place. There is very small chance that whatever is
going bump in the night actually means you and your loved ones harm.

SNIP

Even when there really is a criminal
situation, the vast majority of the time it’s a petty thief looking to
boost some electronics or jewelry to make a quick sale. They just want
their next fix or meal ticket, and they’re not looking to up the ante on
possible jail time by hurting you. Hurting you generally gains them
nothing. Which means that common thieves can usually be scared off
simply by shouting and alerting them to your presence.

There is almost never
an excuse to fire a gun at an intruder without trying to talk to them
and assess the situation first and at least try to scare them off. The
notion that an intruder might have a gun which they might use on you
first unless you have the element of surprise is essentially Hollywood
fantasy.

SNIP

If you shoot first and ask questions later, you should go to jail. It’s not an accident. It’s a crime.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Because running government like a business always fails. It fails for the same reason that trying to grow vegetables in a vat of herbicide fails: mutually exclusive goals.

The goal of every business is to make a profit at the expense of customers. The goal of government is to provide public services that enrich the community, even at the expense of business.

Because a government that seeks to turn a profit - for itself or for its corporate cronies - can not perform its responsibilities as the public's protector.

Private profit is anathema to the public good. Corporatization and privatization are as lethal to good government as altruism and sacrifice are to private enterprise. The two can survive and exist in proximity to each other, but never as part of the other.

Markets are out to make money, regardless of the consequences. Governments exist to rein in those markets when they threaten to harm the public.

And Matt Bevin is out to bankrupt the Commonwealth with his "market" schemes.

Gov. Matt Bevin told a crowd of hundreds of Kentucky business leaders
Thursday that he will bring pro-business principles to the state and
propose an “honest and responsible” budget this month.

Bevin, who
spoke at the annual Kentucky Chamber Day dinner, said he already has
received requests that would add between $1.4 billion and $2.1 billion
in spending to the upcoming budget, which state lawmakers will adopt in
2016.

“News flash, that’s not coming. It’s not – we don’t have
it,” Bevin said. “Truth be told, I wish we did. We don’t have it. So
there will be changes. We will be more austere because we must get our
financial house in order.”

Ah, austerity. The economic fantasy that the cure for hunger is starvation. Austerity is what has left Greece prostate and unable to support itself. Austerity is what nearly killed the U.S. economy until President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus and auto industry rescue injected money back into the starving economy and put it back on its feet.

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is reportedly developing a
crime-reporting app, Fight Crime SF, that will allow citizens to submit
photos and video of suspected criminal activity. The app doesn’t have a
release date but is expected to be released to the public early this
year, according to SFD spokeswoman Officer Susan Merritt’s statements in
a recent issue of the police union’s journal.

“In
early 2016, we will be introducing a new app for the public,” Merritt
wrote. “It will be called Fight Crime SF. Members of the community will
be able to send police video and pictures of crimes in progress or
suspicious activity using this app.”

Police
misconduct, especially when caught on video, has become a focal point
of public criticism across the country. That also has been the case in
San Francisco which is in the midst of an ongoing police brutality
investigation.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Government boards and commissions are not corporate boards of directors and can't operate as if they were, but the latest "run gubmint lak a bidness" asshole to take over the governor's mansion doesn't care about that.

Governor Matt Bevin announced today the appointment of Brett Gaspard as Executive Director of Boards and Commissions. Gaspard brings more than 20 years of private
sector experience with a strong emphasis on contract management, government relations and community engagement.

Translation: the only thing he knows about government is how to grab millions of tax dollars for himself through sweetheart contracts and prevent actual community members from finding out what he's doing.

Mr. Gaspard began his
career as a newspaper reporter while attending Northern Kentucky
University, but later transitioned into the waste management business
where he has spent the past 15 years overseeing
municipal contracts in Ohio and Kentucky. He has also served as a
volunteer advisor to many state and local political candidates including
U.S. Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massie.

Additionally, Gaspard is
the outgoing chairman of the Boone County Republican Party and has held
key volunteer roles with the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce,
Kentucky Taxpayers United and League
of Kentucky Property Owners.

"Waste management" is the most corrupt and polluting industry on the planet, paying out billions in bribes to politicians to get away with dumping toxic waste in parks and playgrounds and schoolyards.

Rand Paul and Thomas Massie are outstanding examples of "bidnessmen" who got elected despite not knowing jackshit about governing or how government actually works.

And you will have a hard time finding four organizations more dedicated to fucking over the working people of Kentucky in order to further enrich the already obscenely wealthy than the Boone County Republican Party, the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce,
Kentucky Taxpayers United and League
of Kentucky Property Owners.

Yeah, I bet he's got some real community-minded altruists lined up for all those boards and commissions.

working for pennies an hour because minimum wages hurt corporate fee-fees, and

wishing we had the money to move to Haiti, because that economy will be better than Kentucky's.

Want to keep track of who is fucking you over today?m The Legislative Research Commission (the agency that staffs the lege) is on it:

When the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives are gaveled into order at noon (Tuesday), Kentuckians will have many ways to stay connected to action throughout the 2016 legislative
session.

The Kentucky Legislature Home Page (www.lrc.ky.gov)
is updated daily to provide the latest legislative information. Web
surfers can view the issues before lawmakers by browsing through bill
summaries, amendments and resolutions. The website is regularly updated
to indicate each bill’s status in the legislative
process, as well as the next day’s committee-meeting schedule and
agendas.

In
addition to general information about the legislative process, the
website provides information on each of Kentucky’s senators and
representatives, including their phone numbers, addresses
and legislative committee assignments.

A mobile-friendly version of the website can be viewed by going online to
www.lrc.ky.gov/isite/index.html
and adding the site
to a smartphone’s home screen. The LRC seal that will appear on the
home screen allows users to connect to some of the more popular features
of the website including the legislative calendar and a directory of
the state legislators with their photographs.

Citizens
are also welcome to see proceedings in person in the State Capitol’s
legislative chambers and committee rooms, which are open to the public.

Those
who can’t make the trip to Frankfort can tune in to chamber proceedings
and committee meetings on The Kentucky Channel, KET KY. Kentucky
Educational Television also provides online streaming
of its legislative coverage at KET.org/legislature.

Citizens
can also use toll-free phone lines to follow legislative action and
offer their input to lawmakers. Those who want to give lawmakers
feedback on issues under consideration can call
the Legislative Message Line at 800-372-7181. Those who prefer to offer
their feedback in Spanish can call the General Assembly's Spanish Line
at 866-840-6574. Citizens with hearing impairments can use the TTY
Message Line at 800-896-0305.

A
taped message containing information on the daily schedule for
legislative committee meetings is available by calling the Legislative
Calendar Line at 800-633-9650.

Citizens
can write to any legislator by sending a letter with a lawmaker's name
on it to: Legislative Offices, 702 Capitol Ave., Frankfort, KY 40601.

The
2016 session is expected to last 60 working days, the limit allowed by
the Kentucky Constitution, and is scheduled to adjourn on April 12.

They’re
apparently upset at the conviction and upcoming jail sentences of a
couple of fellow domestic terrorists for arson. They believe that the
federal government has no constitutional authority to own land, that
national parks are essentially illegal, and that men like them have a
God-given right to mine, log and otherwise destroy whatever forest land
they want. (It remains unclear whether they would condone Native
Americans for “standing their ground” and responding with force to their
trespass on the same lands that God clearly gave to them first.)

I
don’t want to dwell too much on the rationales and motivations for
these domestic terrorists any more than I would for the people who fight
for ISIS or Al Qaeda. It’s always the same thing: a group of armed,
angry men believe that the Big Bad Western Government is infringing on
their right to do whatever it is they very well please—whether it’s to
the environment, or to minorities, women, people of different religious
groups, etc. Undereducated, armed angry men are often upset at Western
governments for upsetting their private power apple carts because in
their small, solipsistic worlds they’re very used to being lords of
their manors and local enforcers of bigoted frontier justice. That’s as
true of Afghan militants in the Taliban as it is of rural Montana
militiamen. The only difference is in the trappings, the external
presence of the rule of law and the degree of violence involved.

SNIP

As much as
restraint is the better part of valor when dealing with entitled
conservative crazies, principles of basic justice and fair play also
need to apply. What’s good for one type of terrorist must also be good
for another.

Actually, there is a difference. Domestic terrorists -
conservatard white guys with guns who think they own the world - are a
genuine existential threat to the United States of America, its
residents and its Constitution.

So Matt Bevin's first act as our only governor - after declaring the Commonwealth a christianist theocracy run by idiot freakazoids like Kim Davis - was to strip state employees of their tiny increase in minimum wage from deep poverty to almost-able-to-see-a-living-wage-from-here-if-you-squint-really-hard.

So instead of state government wages leading the way for increases in the private sector, Bevin's un-government has dropped Kentucky back down to $7.25 - below even worthless states like Arkansas and West Virginia.

Next week workers in these 14 states will get a higher minimum wage:Alaska, from $8.75 to $9.75Arkansas, $7.50 to $8.00
California, $9.00 to $10.00
Colorado, $8.23 to $8.31
Connecticut, $9.15 to $9.60
Hawaii, $7.75 to $8.50
Massachusetts, $9.00 to $10.00
Michigan, $8.15 to $8.50
Nebraska, $8.00 to $9.00
New York, $8.75 to $9.00 (as of 12/31/15, fast food excepted)
Rhode Island, $9.00 to $9.60
South Dakota, $8.50 to $8.55
Vermont, $9.15 to $9.60West Virginia, $8.00 to $8.75 (as of 12/31/15)

No, for the zillionth time, raising the minimum does not, never has and never will kill jobs. It does, however, put money in the hands of the working poor, who spend it immediately to pay rent and buy food, clothes and other necessities, thus putting money in the pockets of the local people who sell that stuff and then use the money to buy other stuff and hire more employees, and so on. Google "virtuous cycle."

Then google "Faux Libertarian Greedhead." At the top of the page is Matt Bevin's picture.

Lauren Scott, a single mother and homeless, goes for a job interview:Sixty-nine stops on a bus; a nine-minute train ride; an additional 49 stops on a bus; a quarter-mile walk.Scott
carries a spiral notebook with her “Plan of Action for the Week.” The
Washington Post chronicles her struggle to find work in Atlanta. It
would have taken 27 minutes in a car. It is a four-hour round trip on
the bus. Getting to the interview is just one of the obstacles to
climbing out of poverty. Rising prices in the city are driving
low-income residents further from where the jobs are.But
even as their ranks have grown, the deeply impoverished in the Deep
South have also increasingly found that they are on their own: They are
less likely to receive the help of a spouse — or the government. Five of
the six states with the highest proportion of single parents are in the
Deep South. Meanwhile, policymakers have dismantled the cash assistance
programs that used to provide critical support for the jobless with
children. Those like Scott not only have less access to jobs, but also
less of a safety net when they are unemployed.

It's a good
thing she doesn't have to take a drug test before getting a bus pass.
Scott had been self-sufficient, even if only hanging on. Her life was a
Jenga game with too many pieces gone. Having a child brought it crashing
down. There was no cushion left.Other factors
add to the difficulty of the poor finding work. Those who can’t afford
to live in city centers often must depend on walking, hitching rides or
laborious public transportation commutes. A 2011 Brookings Institution
report ranking public transit in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas
found that 15 of the weakest 20 systems — judged by coverage and job
access — were in the South. They included systems in Birmingham, Ala.;
Greenville, S.C.; Baton Rouge; and Atlanta — where, in earlier decades,
majority-white suburbs voted against the expansion of a transit system
they viewed as being primarily for black residents.Let's
see. So suburbanites insist poor people get jobs they can't get because
they can't commute to where the jobs are because they don't have cars
because they don't have jobs.

And the poor can't use public
transportation to commute to jobs they can't get because suburbanites
don't want to pay taxes to expand public transportation they see as
primarily benefiting poor people who can't afford to move closer to jobs
and the suburbanites don't want them living in their neighborhoods
anyway. This Catch 22 situation is a product of a moral failing on
somebody's part. The comfortable are pretty sure it's the shiftless and
slovenly Poors' failing. Good luck finding support for a "basic income"
upon which to build better futures.Ask Janis
Adkins about that. She wound up homeless in Santa Barbara after losing
her nursery business. No wonder Trump's faithful are so worried about
immigrants and their own futures. Deep down, they know they could be
next at the bottom of the ladder. Until then, no grace for those already
there.Maybe America needs a moratorium on saving souls until it finds its own.

About Me

"Blue" in Blue in the Bluegrass refers to my politics, not my state of mind, although being progressive-democratic in Kentucky is not for the faint of heart.
The Bluegrass Region of Kentucky is Central Kentucky, the area around Lexington. It's also sometimes known as the Golden Triangle, the region formed by Louisville in the west, Cincinnati in the north and Lexington in the east-south corner. This is the most economically advanced, politically progressive and aesthically beautiful area of the state. Also the most overpopulated by annoying yuppies and the most endangered by urban sprawl.
A Yellow Dog Democrat is one who will vote for even a yellow dog if it is running as a Democrat. I can't claim to be quite that fanatically partisan, especially since quite a few candidates who run as Democrats in Kentucky are more Republican than a lot of Republicans I can name.
But I do love the story Kentucky House leader Rocky Adkins never tires of telling about the old-timer in Eastern Kentucky who was once accused of being willing to vote for Satan if Satan ran as a Democrat. Spat back the old-timer:
"Not in a primary, I wouldn't!"
Amen.